Tuesday, September 30, 2008

The attacks against Palin have been disgusting, her acceptance speech was astonishing, her answer in the clip below is gibberish.

Cafferty's disgust is understandable. This exposes an important question. Palin has been compared to Reagan and Thatcher, but both these were intelligent people with good understandings of the economic principles of Liberalism. Thatcher had Keith Joseph behind her, Reagan was deeply influenced by Friedman.

When asked about economic questions, Palin just puts a pile of stock phrases into a bag, jumbles them up and then pulls them out in a random order. That technique produced some striking lyrics for David Bowie but it's unconvincing in the political context. It's the kind of thing a very stupid but carefully rehearsed person might do when completely out of their depth.

Even without these interview problems, Palin's history of bathing in religious snake oil makes it hard to take her brain seriously. Her involvement with a Kenyan witch-hunter reveals plain, unadorned stupidity - not a lack of judgement, just plain stupidity. The preacher involved is a brutal buffoon, ludicrous and malevolent, a Capo in clown trousers. If Palin buys into that sort of religion, she's an idiot.

The important question, though, is this: So what? Obama is an economic cretin with a history of involvement with religious lunatics, and he's standing to be the next President, not the next VP.

UPDATE: Damian Mann points out in the comments that Palin's acceptance speech was a teleprompter triumph. That's true. I wonder what Obama's teleprompter thought about it.

"Senator Obama is being hailed as the newest and freshest face on the American political scene. But he is advocating some of the oldest fallacies, just as if it was the 1960s again, or as if he has learned nothing and forgotten nothing since then..."More...

"But I doubt any of those excellent economists in the policy shop would be willing to defend the anti-NAFTA, anti-Walmart rhetoric of their candidate."Mankiw...

Obama is peddling ideas that have been discredited since the 1970s at best - his protectionism has been known to be wrong since the eighteenth century.

Peter, instead of quoting some right-wing propaganda as fact, you might want to try to have an original thought on the subject. Obama's plan , which includes creating new jobs in infrastructure repair and green energy...as well as new transportation options that could reinvigorate Detroit's auto industry...sounds pretty good. He's thinking in terms of the 21st century economy and what it'll take to compete in it....as well as how we deal with global warming and our crumbling infrastructure. That's what we need. And, like or not....that's what we're getting starting next year.

Now , if we could only change the laws that the Bushies wrote up that protects them from criminal prosecution for war-crimes...and , probably many other things...the world will be a better place. WE ARE DONE WITH REPUBLICANS. TIME'S UP. THEY BLEW IT.

Damian, Obama's own policy ideas, and the ancient fallacies they are based on, are not right wing propaganda. You've actually just rephrased my criticisms of Obama in approving language. So, you approve of ancient fallacies. That's a matter for you.